Chamber and committees

What kind of range of numbers of fish inside the cage are we looking at?

I appreciate that you do not think that it is relevant, but I am curious to understand an average range of stocking density.

I am really grateful when you unpack acronyms and industry jargon.

You picked up on an interesting point about the “national approach, locally delivered” idea being in the PFG. We talked about that a couple of years ago, at the beginning of the Verity house agreement. We said that we would try to move away from that delivery arm approach. I will not dig into anything about the Verity house agreement because colleagues have questions on that, but it was a good point.

What is your sense of the impact of the levels of capital funding on the state of existing infrastructure and of how they are meeting requirements relating to housing and net zero? We are in a time of restricted capital resources, so how should councils prioritise their capital spend?

You talked about the need to plan ahead over five to 10 years, which sounds like a pipeline. How do we get there? Is that a UK Government-level decision?

That is certainly the case.

Who wants to pick that up? Miles, I think that you should just pick somebody.

That is a very good point. It goes back to what you said before about the knock-on effect—when something is legislated for, we must consider where in the financial memorandum is the money to enact those things.

Mark Griffin has the final question.

Who wants to have a go at that one? Bill?

Our next item is to take evidence as part of our pre-budget scrutiny for 2025-26. We are joined by Professor David Heald, who is emeritus professor in the Adam Smith business school at the University of Glasgow; Bill Howat and Keith Yates, who are members of the Mercat group; and Alison Payne, who is research director at Reform Scotland. I welcome the witnesses to the meeting.

We turn to questions. We will try to direct our questions to specific witnesses when possible. However, if you would like to come in, please indicate that to me or the clerks. There is no need for you to operate your microphones, as that will be done for you—that is one less thing to think about while you are being asked questions. We have about 90 minutes for the discussion.

I will start with a broad framing question for all of you. We would be interested in your views on how the forthcoming budget process and local government settlement could do more to empower local democracy and ensure that communities get the services that they need. That is a big question to start off with. Who would like to start?